Barricades have been in use for a long period of time for controlling traffic by providing a physical barrier to all or portions of a right of way so that it is clearly visible to a motorist to permit the motorist to readily avoid the barricaded area on a road, highway or the like. One of the common types of barricades presently in use is a barricade having an A- frame design. The conventional barricade of the A - frame type consists of two barricade members that are constructed of angle iron legs and upper and lower planar rails constructed of wood that are riveted between a pair of the angle-iron legs. Each barricade member is a pivotably secured together at the tops of the angle-iron legs. The rails for the barricade are generally marked with stripes of alternate colors such as orange and white or black and white. The markings have been conventionally provided by the application of commercially available reflective sheeting that is adhesively secured to the planar surfaces of the rails. The A-frame barricade has conventionally mounted a warning light, either of the flashing type or the "steady burn" design. The warning lights of the steel-wooden A - frames have been secured by a securing bolt also functioning as a pivot pin for the angle irons. As a result of the long period of use of this type of A-frame barricade, it has become readily recognizable to the motoring public, including the fact that they are constructed of steel and wood so that intelligent motorist attempt to avoid impacting such a barricade with their motor vehicles and thereby avoid damaging their vehicles or causing any other damage due to the impact between the barricade and the vehicle. Presently some states prohibit the placement of wooden-steel barricades on high speed highways or the like as they are inherently too dangerous for use thereon. In view of the disadvantages of the steel-wood construction of the A-frame type barricade, plastic barricades have been developed and have been extensively used.
Prior art plastic barricades are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,880,406; 3,950,873; and 4,298,186. A lightweight traffic barricade constructed of cardboard is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,383,782. The use of known prior art, commercially available plastic barricades has revealed certain problems and deficiencies attendant to their use. Present day plastic barricades are lighter in weight than a steel-wood constructed barricade and are more responsive to the steady impact of winds and wind gusts that tend to topple them over. A typical prior art plastic barricade weighs in the range of 8 to 11 pounds, while a steel-wood barricade weighs on the order of 22 pounds. The lower weight of a plastic barricade renders it less stable than one constructed in the conventional fashion from heavy materials such as wood and steel. When the plastic barricade of the A-frame type or even the wooden-steel barricade is impacted by winds or gusts of winds, the wind imparts a force to the rails or cross members of the barricades, tending to lift up the front legs of the barricade, thereby causing the front legs to move towards the rear legs, thereby reducing the desired stable spacing between the legs. This type of response to winds may progressively move the front legs toward the rear legs until the barricade falls over due to the unstable spacing between the legs.
Plastic barricades of the A-frame type have conventionally been ballasted with sand, sand bags or the like to add weight thereto for rendering them more stable and less responsive to wind and wind gusts. Preferably sufficient weight is added to approach the weight of a conventional wood-steel barricade. The present day prior art plastic barricades are designed to permit the ballast to be positioned in the hollow legs or cross members of the barricade. These prior art barricades are typically moved upwardly in response to an impact from a motor vehicle, particularly when the added ballast renders them top heavy. No prior art plastic barricade is known that is constructed and designed for minimizing the closing action of the legs of a plastic barricade, other than through the use of ballasting and the use of a spreader bar to force the legs apart, due to the aforementioned wind action.
It has also been determined that the weakest point of a plastic barricade of the A-frame type is the design of the hinge mehcanism for permitting the barricade legs to be pivoted relative to one another. When an impact to the barricade results in damages to or breaking of the hinge mechanism, the entire barricade or at least one half of the barricade may be rendered useless so that the damaged barricade members must be replaced with barricade members having operable hinge mechanisms. A major flaw in the prior art plastic barricades is that no convenient method is provided for securing a warning light directly to the barricade. Warning lights are usually secured to a metal or plastic strap attached to the top of the barricade to be used with a bolt running between the strap and the warning light. The methods of producing prior art types of plastic barricades includes blow molding and roto casting techniques to form a hollow device with relatively thick wall sections which can be internally ballasted. In addition, structural foam injection molded designs for plastic barricades have relatively thick wall sections so they also are more likely to be less forgiving and pliable and therefore will also be damaged or crushed when a motor vehicle is driven over the barricade. Accordingly, an improved, more reliable, wind resistant, damage-proof plastic barricade of the Aframe type is needed in the art.